Editing Denis Diderot (section)

== Encyclopédie ==
{{Main|Encyclopédie}}

===Genesis===
[[File:Encyclopedie de D'Alembert et Diderot - Premiere Page - ENC 1-NA5.jpg|thumb|Title page of the {{lang|fr|[[Encyclopédie]]}}]]

[[André le Breton]], a bookseller and printer, approached Diderot with a project for the publication of a translation of [[Ephraim Chambers]]' ''[[Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences]]'' into French, first undertaken by the Englishman [[John Mills (encyclopedist)|John Mills]], and followed by the German [[Gottfried Sellius]].<ref name="EB1911"/> Diderot accepted the proposal, and transformed it. He persuaded Le Breton to publish a new work, which would consolidate ideas and knowledge from the [[Republic of Letters]]. The publishers found capital for a larger enterprise than they had first planned. [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]] was persuaded to become Diderot's colleague, and permission was procured from the government.

In 1750, an elaborate prospectus announced the project, and the first volume was published in 1751.<ref name="EB1911"/> This work was unorthodox and advanced for the time. Diderot stated that "An encyclopedia ought to make good the failure to execute such a project hitherto, and should encompass not only the fields already covered by the academies, but each and every branch of human knowledge." Comprehensive knowledge will give "the power to change men's common way of thinking."<ref>Examples are Diderot's articles on Asian philosophy and religion; see [[Urs App]]. ''The Birth of Orientalism''. Philadelphia: [[University of Pennsylvania Press]], 2010 ({{ISBN|978-0812242614}}), pp. 133–187.</ref> The work combined scholarship with information on trades. Diderot emphasized the abundance of knowledge within each subject area. Everyone would benefit from these insights.

===Controversies===
Diderot's work, however, was mired in controversy from the beginning; the project was suspended by the courts in 1752. Just as the second volume was completed, accusations arose regarding seditious content, concerning the editor's entries on religion and natural law. Diderot was detained and his house was searched for manuscripts for subsequent articles: but the search proved fruitless as no manuscripts could be found. They had been hidden in the house of an unlikely confederate—[[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Chretien de Lamoignon Malesherbes]], who originally ordered the search. Although Malesherbes was a staunch absolutist, and loyal to the monarchy—he was sympathetic to the literary project.<ref>Andrew S. Curran, Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, Other Press, 2019, pp. 161–164</ref> Along with his support, and that of other well-placed influential confederates, the project resumed. Diderot returned to his efforts only to be constantly embroiled in controversy.

These twenty years were to Diderot not merely a time of incessant drudgery, but harassing persecution and desertion of friends. The ecclesiastical party detested the ''Encyclopédie'', in which they saw a rising stronghold for their philosophic enemies. By 1757, they could endure it no longer—the subscribers had grown from 2,000 to 4,000, a measure of the growth of the work in popular influence and power.<ref name="EB1911"/> Diderot wanted the ''Encyclopédie'' to give all the knowledge of the world to the people of France. However, the ''Encyclopédie'' threatened the governing social classes of France (aristocracy) because it took for granted the justice of [[religious tolerance]], [[freedom of thought]], and the value of science and industry.<ref>Lyons, Martyn. "Books: A Living History". Getty Publishing, 2011,  p. 107.</ref> It asserted the doctrine that the main concern of the nation's government ought to be the nation's common people. It was believed that the ''Encyclopédie'' was the work of an organized band of conspirators against society, and that the dangerous ideas they held were made truly formidable by their open publication. In 1759, the ''Encyclopédie'' was formally suppressed.<ref name="EB1911"/> The decree did not stop the work, which went on, but its difficulties increased by the necessity of being clandestine. [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]] withdrew from the enterprise and other powerful colleagues, including [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune]], declined to contribute further to a book that had acquired a bad reputation.{{sfn|Morley|1911}}

===Diderot's contribution===
Diderot was left to finish the task as best he could. He wrote approximately 7,000 articles,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/15/denis-diderot-america-donald-trump|title='Beware the affluence of gold': on reading Diderot in the age of Trump|last=Curran|first=Andrew S.|date=15 December 2018|work=The Guardian|access-date=5 February 2019|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> some very slight, but many of them laborious, comprehensive, and long. He damaged his eyesight correcting proofs and editing the manuscripts of less scrupulous contributors. He spent his days at workshops, mastering manufacturing processes, and his nights writing what he had learned during the day. He was incessantly harassed by threats of police raids. The last copies of the first volume were issued in 1765.

In 1764, when his immense work was drawing to an end, he encountered a crowning mortification: he discovered that the bookseller, Le Breton, fearing the government's displeasure, had struck out from the proof sheets, after they had left Diderot's hands, all passages that he considered too dangerous. "He and his printing-house overseer", writes Furbank, "had worked in complete secrecy, and had moreover deliberately destroyed the author's original manuscript so that the damage could not be repaired."<ref>P. N. Furbank. ''Diderot: A Critical Biography.'' New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 273.</ref> The monument to which Diderot had given the labor of twenty long and oppressive years was irreparably mutilated and defaced.<ref name="EB1911"/> It was 12 years, in 1772, before the subscribers received the final 28 folio volumes of the ''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' since the first volume had been published.{{clarify|date=August 2023}}

When Diderot's work on the ''Encyclopédie'' project came to an end in 1765, he expressed concerns to his friends that the twenty-five years he had spent on the project had been wasted.<ref name=":0" />